


strings are for playing with

by Suzume



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Cats, Getting Together, Kazakhstan, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: Such is the way between humans and cats.





	strings are for playing with

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [strings attached](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9497798) by [verity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity). 



> Or: strings are for playing with (the mostly about cats mix)

When Yuri admits that he’s buying a ticket to Kazakh (somewhat like he impulsively bought a ticket to Japan the winter before), Grandpa seems quietly amused, but he has the good manners not to remark on it.  He understands Yuri enough to see that a trip to Kazakh probably means a friend in Kazakh.  Yuri knows a great many people, but doesn’t have more than two or three of what would pass for real friends (and they probably at least partially include Victor and that other Yuuri).  
  
Maya, his cat, sees Yuri off from home.  She can certainly tell that something is going on (“I’m going on a trip,” he says), but doesn’t act too perturbed.  
  
Grandpa, on the other hand, sees Yuri off at Pulkovo Airport with a wave and about half a hug.  He doesn’t have much trouble handling when Yuri is away, but it’s practically inevitable that he misses the grandson he largely raised on his own.  Yuri has a strong, standoffish personality and while Grandpa can’t say he did much to discourage its development, he didn’t exactly encourage it either.  Yuri might have more friends if he were nicer, Grandpa thinks at times.  
  
As it is, Yuri winnows down his potential friends fiercely.  He must really like the friend in Kazakh to be going off like this.  Things proceeded similarly swiftly when he followed Victor to Japan- a sign of what Victor (or at least Victor’s previously promised choreography) meant to him.  Thus, a similar sign regarding this other friend.  Grandpa has no intention to pry, however.  He simply hopes that Yuri will have as much fun as he can.

* * *

 Snejïnka has one eye and it's blue. Although Otabek suggests that Yuri can call her something else if he wants, "Snejïnka" seems just fine. Her fur is on the long side and nearly as white as can be imagined. She wears her name well.  She is like a snowflake.  
  
When Yuri suggests that he can't take her home, Otabek adds, "Your cat in Almaty," and Yuri supposes he's right.  
  
Snejïnka purrs while Yuri scratches her beneath the chin.  A second cat and a friendlier-seeming one too.  A nicer cat than Maya.  Less particular, apparently.  …Yuri guessed a cat could be more like that, maybe?  Practically all his cat experience comes from Maya though, so it wasn’t what he had been expecting.  
  
This is the first time Yuri's thought he wanted a cat in Almaty, but now that it's been thought, he's set on it.  A cat in a house makes it a home.  His home away from home?  ...Though not that he would be likely to admit that.

* * *

Otabek has a twinkle in his eye when he meets Yuri at the airport.  "Oh good," Yuri says upon seeing him.  There's always the possibility when Otabek doesn't respond to a message that he might not show up at arrivals.  One can't exactly be certain.  Did he see the message and stay silent or did he not see it in the first place?  There’s still a measure of unpredictability about him at least as far as texts go.  
  
"I guess you're staying at my place."  
  
"You guess," Yuri says with a snort.  Where else would he be likely to stay?  Sure, he could make reservations at some hotel, but when one knew someone in the given country one was visiting, why wouldn't a person stay with them?  Otabek probably has a perfectly serviceable home or apartment somewhere in the city.  He has no plans to give him too hard a time about it (just a little bit maybe because of who he is- it’s not easy to be that naturally sincere about most things.  That’s just not the kind of guy he is).

* * *

"Huh, and here I thought you'd have a dirt floor or something," Yuri muses upon arriving at the sixth floor apartment after first a motorbike ride and then a shorter elevator ride from the parking garage (and there he goes and says something kind of snide, because of course).  
  
"You'll have to go up into the mountains for that."  
  
"I didn't make any plans yet," Yuri tosses his bag onto the floor by the couch.  He’s not too inclined to think he’s going to decide to go up there either when the city is so accommodating.  He’s not too much of a hiker or anything.  He’s more of an urban sort of guy.  He appreciates the amenities of the city.  Not that he expects them to be all that great, but, you know, like, restaurants, being indoors, that kind of thing.  
  
"By the way, I have something for you," Otabek goes on.  
  
What he means is Snejïnka, the cat.

* * *

Grandpa calls Yuri's other cat Matroskin after the striped gray cartoon cat because she talks so much.  Maya isn’t as gray as the cartoon, but she’s also a tabby.  
  
For the first two months that Maya lived with Yuri, she hid under his bed and yowled each time he kicked his shoes off under it.  If Yuri pretends it isn't happening, she'll cuddle up to him nowadays.  Such is the way between humans and cats.  …Or so he generally thought.  
  
Snejïnka is practically completely different.  She climbs into his lap and stays there.  She's so friendly it's almost strange.  Yuri pets her and Otabek sits down cross-legged beside him.  "Not every cat's like you and me."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
Otabek's knee bumps Yuri's thigh.  
  
…Standoffish he means, maybe.  Cats don’t usually warm up to people very quickly.  And then despite that same standoffishness, someone knocks on the door and they run and hide.  They can be fairly timid and usually prefer a good amount of routine in their lives.  
  
For instance, Maya always wants to be fed after Yuri comes home from the rink in the morning.  She knows approximately how long he’ll be gone and waits for him to come home from practice, then almost immediately begins to meow to express her hunger.  “Yeah, yeah,” Yuri will say blandly, “I’m getting to it…Hang on…”  
  
Grandpa could feed Maya if she had asked him while Yuri was out, but instead she generally wants Yuri to do it and Grandpa only takes over when Yuri’s away at a meet of one sort or another.  Yuri doesn’t mind feeding her too much.  She’s only one cat, so it’s not like it’s easy for her to make too much trouble, even if she is a bit picky.  
  
It’s hard to imagine Snejïnka being picky.  She seems so easy-going.  She would probably eat almost whatever you fed her (wet food, dry food, whatever people feed cats these days in Kazakh).  
  
“She wakes me up in the mornings by standing on me,” Otabek muses.  
  
“Does she knead on you?”  
  
“Y-yeah, I guess so,” he supposes.  
  
“Then that means she really likes you.”  But Yuri’s not surprised with a cat this friendly.  If he’s being honest, he’d have to admit that Otabek isn’t too hard to like.  There’s a personableness about him in his own off sort of way.  And, also, anyone loved by their cat can’t be that bad.  And anyone who picked up a cat for the sake of their friend can’t be too bad either.  “She’s very pretty,” Yuri goes on.  
  
“Different from your cat,” Otabek says.  
  
That’s right.  He remembered from the photographs.  “A lot different,” Yuri agrees, “In pattern…in personality…”  Maya’s fur shows up against his black pants as well, but at least it isn’t white so it’s less jarring of a look.  
  
Otabek doesn’t have to ask if Yuri likes her.  It’s probably pretty obvious from his body language.  Snejïnka is a nice cat- she’s easy enough to like.  So they’re a pair in a sense- Snejïnka and Otabek.  He likes them both, even if he’s not so keen on saying it.

* * *

The summer days are longer than the rest of the year, though not as long in Kazakh as in St. Petersburg (no northern lights).  They go to get dinner at a restaurant serving trendy versions of traditional Kazakh foods served in tiny portions, on fancy plates.  The chairs are plush and padded.  Yuri feels kind of princely eating here, even though, thankfully, no one seems to notice or recognize him.  He’s able to blend in easily enough with the rest of the crowd, even as a blond.  It’s not as if there aren’t any other blonds around (odds are they’re mainly also tourists from some other country- America, somewhere in Northern Europe, or…ugh, Canada).  
  
The spicy eggplant dish meets Yuri's approval entirely since it's making his eyes water.  Spicy-hot is a definite preference of his.  ”Is this some kind of cover-up?  Are you trying to keep me from finding out you live off instant noodles?" Yuri pries.  
  
"I burn noodles," Otabek says somberly.  
  
"Wow.  Even I can make noodles."  Yuri hadn’t expected that.  He can’t say he minds being a more proficient cook than his friend, but that doesn’t lessen the surprise any.  
  
And then— Yuri realizes he just wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin.  A cloth napkin?  Are they on a date?  Between the trendy restaurant, fancy food, and Otabek sitting proud and tall in his riding leathers, it does seem pretty date-like.  Shit.  Yuri's never been on a date before.  How should he have known?  Maybe he should be acting, like— nicer?  
  
Well, if Otabek wanted a nicer Yuri, he knows where to find Katsuki.  Katsuki’s enough of a homebody since leaving Detroit that anybody who wanted could dig him to go somewhere.  …Only Yuri supposes he’s practically attached at the hip to Victor these days and so you’d have to bring the both of them and that might be sort of a pain.

* * *

By the time they return home, the sun is going down behind the mountains.  Otabek folds his couch out into a bed and even has fresh sheets for it.  "Ridiculous," Yuri thinks.  Snejïnka jumps onto the bed as soon as it's made up and when Yuri sits down, she climbs right onto him.  
  
Otabek stands in front of them, eyes crinkling a little at the corners.  
  
What Yuri might give Otabek in return is a complete mystery, so he has to ask about it a bit stupidly.  
  
"You don't have to give me anything,” Otabek replies, “…You'll have to come visit Snejïnka though.  Otherwise she'll get lonely."  
  
Yuri's cheeks feel like they're burning even though he's sure he isn't blushing.  How neatly he’s been outmaneuvered by someone who doesn’t even answer text messages.  
  
He claims he’s offended.  Which he supposes he is to some degree, but—  
  
"Oh?" Otabek responds.  
  
It's not too easy to kiss someone with a cat in your lap, yet Yuri grabs Otabek's soft shirt and gives it his best shot, making it the deepest kiss he can manage.  Otabek looks into his eyes half surprised and the other half almost as hungrily as he had before dinner and starts to kiss him back.  
  
Snejïnka takes all of this in stride.  Ultimately it doesn’t seem to bother her too much to be sitting in Yuri’s lap while he’s kissing Otabek.  Like so many other things, she seems prepared to take it in stride, though her tail twitches with an inevitable moment’s irritation as Yuri changes his position.  No cat can completely ignore something like that.

* * *

Yuri lays on the couch-bed, sitting up later in the night, and teases Snejïnka with a bit of string.  She bats at it with excitement.  
  
Generally it tends to be the most fun to engage with a cat that will engage back.  He pulls the red string idly back and forth in no particular pattern and Snejïnka keeps at it.  Maya isn’t as big on playing as Snejïnka is.  He’s definitely wound up with two very different sorts of cats in his orbit.  …He would be hard-pressed to say he doesn’t like both of them.  Friendly Snejïnka and fussy Maya.  (And then also Otabek.  Definitely Otabek.)  
  
…but if he gets home with Snejïnka’s scent still on him, he’s not sure Maya’ll ever let him live it down.

 

 


End file.
